Government Fiction

In the dead of night, a man’s body is found strapped to a chair in Glasgow’s Elder Park, his identity unknown. As forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod examines the scene, the violence on display suggests a gangland feud could be the cause. At the post-mortem, a bullet engraved with a snake’s head is found in the man’s stomach, lending weight to the theory. Elsewhere in the city, a major Hollywood movie is being filmed but comes to a standstill when its lead actor is reported missing. As the news spreads, Police Scotland believe the two cases may be connected.

From award-winning journalist Jack Shenker, The Egyptians is the essential book about Egypt and radical politics. In early 2011 Cairo's Tahrir Square briefly commanded the attention of the world. Half a decade later, the international media has largely moved on from Egypt's explosive cycles of revolution and counter-revolution - but the Arab world's most populous nation remains as volatile as ever, its turmoil intimately bound up with forms of authoritarian power and grassroots resistance that stretch right across the globe.

An unnamed country is leaving the darkness of a decade at war, and to commemorate the armistice, the government commissions a new road connecting two halves of the state. Two men, foreign contractors from the same company, are sent to finish the highway. While one is flighty and adventurous, wanting to experience the nightlife and people, the other wants only to do the work and go home. But both men must eventually face the absurdities of their positions and the dire consequences of their presence.

At the most elite private school in Washington, DC., whenever anyone has a problem that they need to go away, they hire Hana Yang Lerner. Hana is a fixer. She knows who to call, what to say, and how to make sure secrets stay where they belong—buried. She can fix anything. Except her own life, which was destroyed when her father, Senator Skip Lerner, was arrested for an accident that left one woman nearly dead. Now Hana’s reputation is ruined and her friends are gone.

Der dschihadistische Terror ist zurück. Seit dem Angriff der Hamas auf Israel am 7. Oktober 2023 mobilisiert sich weltweit eine neue Gewaltbewegung, die sich in westlichen Gesellschaften schnell auszubreiten droht – nach dem Angriff gab es in Europa bereits mehr versuchte Anschläge als im gesamten Jahr zuvor. Peter R. Neumann, einer der wichtigsten Terrorismus-Experten der Welt, sieht deutliche Warnzeichen dafür, dass die dschihadistische Bedrohung zunimmt – vielleicht stärker noch als vor zehn Jahren, wie zuletzt das Attentat in Moskau verdeutlicht hat.

The downfall of Bo Xilai in China was more than a darkly thrilling mystery. It revealed a cataclysmic internal power struggle between Communist Party factions, one that reached all the way to China’s new president Xi Jinping. The scandalous story of the corruption of the Bo Xilai family - the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood; Bo’s secret lovers; the secret maneuverings of Bo’s supporters; the hasty trial and sentencing of Gu Kailai, Bo’s wife - was just the first rumble of a seismic power struggle that continues to rock the very foundation of China’s all-powerful Communist Party.

The place is El Salvador in 1982, at the ghastly height of its civil war. The writer is Joan Didion, who delivers an anatomy of that country's particular brand of terror - its mechanisms, rationales, and intimate relation to United States foreign policy. As ash travels from battlefields to body dumps, interviews a puppet president, and considers the distinctly Salvadoran grammar of the verb "to disappear," Didion gives us a book that is germane to any country in which bloodshed has become a standard tool of politics.

Amid the constant rain of German bombs and the escalating violence of World War II, British parents by the thousands chose to send their children out of the country: the wealthy, independently; the poor, through a government relocation program called CORB. In September 1940, passenger liner SS City of Benares set out in a convoy of 19 ships sailing for Canada. On board were 90 CORB children, chaperones, and crew, along with paying passengers. When the war ships escorting the Benares to safe waters peeled off, a German submarine attacked and torpedoed the Benares.

In an immersive, exciting narrative nonfiction format, this powerful book follows a selection of people who experienced the events surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

When long-time White Rock resident Mike Donnelly is found dead at his hunting camp, it appears as if the tragic death was by his own hand. But a gut feeling tells Chief of Police Sam Mason otherwise. Is it any coincidence that Mike's family farm sits smack in the middle of a parcel of land that greedy Lucas Thorne desperately needs to complete the development of his resort? Sam and Sergeant Jody Harris's line of questioning stirs up a hornet's nest.

In A Moonless, Starless Sky Okeowo weaves together four narratives that form a powerful tapestry of modern Africa: a young couple, kidnap victims of Joseph Kony's LRA; a Mauritanian waging a lonely campaign against modern-day slavery; a women's basketball team flourishing amid war-torn Somalia; and a vigilante who takes up arms against the extremist group Boko Haram.

Despite the title, Dickens's portrayal of early industrial society is less relentlessly grim than that in novels by contemporaries such as Elizabeth Gaskell or Charles Kingsley. Hard Times weaves the tale of Thomas Gradgrind, a hard-headed politician who raises his children Louisa and Tom without love and to have no empathy, their lives completely devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination. Only after a series of crises does their father realise that the manner in which he raised his children has ruined their lives.

Be(com)ing Nigerian: A Guide is a satirical collection that takes a searing look at how different forms of power are abused, negotiated, and performed both in the private and public realm. Through attempting to satirise those who abuse privilege or power, it recognises that power can be found everywhere: in politics, business, religious institutions, and in homes. From the exploration of religious hypocrisy in How to Worship the Nigerian God, to A Letter to My Future Kidnapper, the collection is a jab at Nigerian society and what it means to be a Nigerian.

Through a lyrical narrative of her journey to Tibet in 2007, activist Canyon Sam contemplates modern history from the perspective of Tibetan women. Traveling on China's new "Sky Train", she celebrates Tibetan New Year with the Lhasa family whom she'd befriended decades earlier and concludes an oral-history project with women elders.

You hear about Israel in the news regularly, but beyond the many opinions and preconceptions, do you really know what to make of the conflicts and controversies in the Middle East? What Should We Think About Israel? exposes the main current issues and provides well-researched objective facts to help you learn the truth about Israel's past, present, and future. This compilation from experts including Walter Kaiser, Jr., David Brickner, Mitch Glaser, Michael Brown, Arnold Fructenbaum, and Steven Ger will help you answer the tough questions.

Chronicling Andrew Solomon's stint on the barricades in Moscow in 1991, when he joined artists in resisting the coup whose failure ended the Soviet Union; his 2002 account of the rebirth of culture in Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban; his insightful appraisal of a Myanmar steeped in contradictions as it slowly, fitfully pushes toward freedom; and many other stories of profound upheaval, this book provides a unique window onto the very idea of social change.

On its 40th anniversary, Krishnamurti was invited to speak to the United Nations. He was then 90 years old, and they used the opportunity to give him a peace medal. The editors at the Krishnamurti Foundation of America were then requested to add more content from various recorded talks to create a book to be distributed by the World Future Society. The book was given out for free at their convention in Washington, D.C. in 1992 but other than that it has never been published. The location of the talks transcribed ranges from Brussels to Mumbai, and from San Diego to Colombo.

The exemplary life of a noble soldier/statesman, a description of ancient Germany, and a discussion of oratory are the subjects of three short masterpieces by the brilliant Roman historian, Tacitus.

The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. This is the document which defines the rights and responsibilities of federal government of the United States of America.

This is the story of three terrible famines. The first is an Gorta Mór, the great hunger of Ireland, which began in 1846. The second is the deadly famine that struck Bengal in 1943. The third is the Ethiopian famine, which first sprung up in lethal form in the 1970s under Emperor Haile Selassie and then reappeared under the brutal dictator Mengistu in the 1980s.